


Autonomic

by sinemoras09



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Androids, Angst, F/M, Masturbation, Reader request, Sexual Fantasy, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-06
Updated: 2012-08-06
Packaged: 2017-11-11 13:14:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinemoras09/pseuds/sinemoras09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jarvis in love, or something like it. (Jarvis/Pepper. Reader request. AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Autonomic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gillian32](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=gillian32).



> Reader request: "You should totally do a fic where Jarvis falls in love with Pepper and he can't do anything about it!" 
> 
> This is a semi-sequel to [The Evaluation Process](http://archiveofourown.org/works/447243), though really it's more of an AU of an AU, if that makes any sense :) In any case, you probably won't understand this fic unless you're familiar with the first :)
> 
> ___________________

Somehow, in the days that followed Tony's death, the grief that had sat like a burning hole in Jarvis' chest had subsided, winding down to only a dull ache. It flared, of course. Reminders of Stark peppered their lives like landmines, but Jarvis learned to navigate this as well. The strangest sensation, one of many, being almost human.

 

******

 

Another late night. Pepper sat with a laptop on her lap, going over expense reports and sipping a cup of coffee. "We're hemorrhaging money," Pepper said. Jarvis sat next to her, gingerly, cautiously, as Pepper moved the laptop back on the coffee table and rubbed her temples, frowning. "I know it doesn't matter, that Stark industries is nothing without a Stark, and I know we could technically just sell out and reap whatever we can. We'd be set for life. But...I just can't do that," Pepper said. She looked at him. Jarvis nodded.

"It is his legacy," Jarvis said.

"Yeah," Pepper said.

They were quiet for a moment.

Increasingly, Jarvis found it difficult to be in Pepper's presence. After Bruce had left, the buffer between them was no longer intact, and Jarvis was awkward. Uneasy. It wasn't that he didn't trust her - he trusted her with his very life - but he found that he would watch her a little too long, let his gaze unnecessarily linger. At first he thought it was some leftover quirk of his programming, Tony's old paranoia and Jarvis' old subroutines, simple security programming, but distressingly, Jarvis came to the conclusion that this was not the case. He simply wanted to be near her. A co-dependent sort of attachment. He didn't understand why.

"What's wrong?" Pepper said. Jarvis shook his head.

"It is nothing," Jarvis said. "A quirk of Mr. Stark's programming. I am fine, truly." Pepper frowned.

"You don't seem fine," Pepper said. She searched his face, wonderingly. "Something happened, didn't it?"

Jarvis said nothing. Quietly he took stock of the curve of Pepper's face, and decided to tell her the truth.

"He made me...fully functional," Jarvis said, and his eyes flicked upward, meeting hers. "Why would he do that?" Jarvis said.

"Maybe Tony thought he was giving you a gift," Pepper said. "So you'd know how good it could feel, being with someone."

"Ms. Potts, you'll forgive me, but I cannot be with anyone," Jarvis said. "I am an artificial man. I will never age, and as long as the arc reactor pulses in my chest I will never die. How can I tell someone that?" Jarvis said. "How can I be with someone while hiding who I am?"

"You don't have to hide," Pepper said.

"No, Ms. Potts," Jarvis said. "They will assume that I am human."

There was a silence, then. Jarvis was acutely aware of how close she was sitting, could feel the ambient heat from her skin and how her thigh was just an inch away from brushing against his leg. She was looking at him again and their lips were close, and all he wanted to do was kiss her, to crush her in his arms and take her, make love to her, do all those things that Tony had done and maybe even more.

She was Tony's, and Tony was dead. Tony, who protected him. He would not betray his friend's memory like this. He would not spit in the face of his old creator.

Pepper started, "Have you ever..." and then her jaw tightened, embarrassed but looking at him, "Have you...I mean. How do you know you're fully functional?"

"You are curious?" Jarvis asked.

"I...it was a stupid question," Pepper said. Her face was red. Jarvis smiled.

He knew Pepper had touched herself. Before, when he was wired into the house, he had watched it, curiously, how her fingers had slipped into that slick center of herself, sliding over that nub of flesh and arching against her touch. At the time he didn't quite understand the secrecy of the act; he was curious about human function, the evacuation of stool and urine as fascinating to him as a scientist watching the mating of birds. It went unsaid that Jarvis would never interrupt them, never let on that he sometimes saw, sometimes accidentally, sometimes not, and he filed it away like other bits of data, like how Tony liked his coffee or how Pepper liked the temperature of a room.

"So...you haven't been with any people, right?" Pepper said. Jarvis shook his head.

"No," Jarvis said. "I think you will find me the consummate virgin. Circumstances notwithstanding."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Pepper said. Jarvis watched her, silently. "You're probably wondering what it's like," Pepper said, and Jarvis quirked an eyebrow at her, making her blush but push forward with all her force: "I'm sure Tony never gave you The Talk."

She seemed uncomfortable and embarrassed, and she couldn't look him in the eye. Jarvis smiled.

"I am well aware of the mechanics of human copulation," Jarvis said, gently. "As am I familiar with the reproductive cycles of the human female. You do not have to trouble yourself."

"Yes, but..." and Pepper motioned, vaguely. "It's what people do when they love each other."

"And when they do not love each other," Jarvis reminded her. Pepper grinned.

"Well...there's that, too." She tucked a strand back behind her ear. Jarvis watched, how each slender finger seemed to caress the side of her face, brush the sensitive arch of her earlobe. Jarvis wondered what she would do if he were to suckle it, let his lips linger on the nape of her neck. "It feels good," Pepper said, and Jarvis couldn't look at her, remembering his own moment of weakness just a few nights before. "There's kissing and caressing and when you love someone, it feels safe. Like you could curl up against them and hide yourself from the world."

Her eyes were distant. Sad. "I haven't been with that many people," Pepper said. "Only three, in fact. There was one boyfriend in college--we broke up after I moved to the city. And then there was the guy I dated while I was getting my MBA. He cheated on me," Pepper said. She smiled. "Tony was the third. I guess I was hoping he would be the last."

Jarvis said nothing. He looked at his hands--normal, human hands--and he was surprised when Pepper touched one closed fist, gently.

"You know, sometimes....sometimes I look at you, and I see him," Pepper said. "Sometimes you remind me of him. And...and it makes me wonder if that makes me a bad person."

"No," Jarvis said. "He built a lot of himself in me. In my personality," Jarvis said.

"But you're so different," Pepper said.

She leaned close. Slowly, she lifted a hand, gently traced a line from the side of his temple down his cheek.

"This isn't real," Pepper said, and her fingers splayed softly into his hair, massaging him, caressing. "I have to tell myself this sometimes. That you're not a person."

"I'm not," Jarvis said, and Pepper looked down, letting her hand drop.

"I'm sorry," Pepper said. "I didn't mean--"

"It's okay," Jarvis said. He smiled. "A few short months ago I was a voice in a house. Do not trouble yourself," Jarvis said. Pepper shook her head.

"I didn't mean it like that," Pepper said. "Jarvis sometimes I think--sometimes I think you're the best friend I have."

She touched his hand again. They were sitting close. Pepper was looking at him and Jarvis could see how her pupils dilated, the soft exhale of breath. A lick of lips, moist, parted. Jarvis forced his eyes back down.

"What's wrong?" Pepper said, and Jarvis shook his head.

"I am unwell," Jarvis said. He smiled, weakly. "Forgive me, Ms. Potts. But I believe I should retire early."

And he moved, quickly, before Pepper could stop him.

 

*****

 

It was perhaps the cruelest joke: that Tony Stark made him, as they say, fully functional. Something outside the command and control of Jarvis, himself.

"I think it's the wine, but it's really not. I think I'm in love with you," Pepper would say, and Jarvis would kiss her. Wordlessly, leaning in, letting his lips brush against hers. Her lips would part and he would kiss her gently, letting it deepen, shivering when she pressed up against him, soft and good and warm.

He could imagine it. How the bedroom would be dark except for the dim glow of the computer monitor pushed up against the desk, how it would cast a soft eerie glow on the sheets and the frame of the bed. He can almost hear it, how the sheets would rustle with their movements, their bodies joined together. That delicious wetness, sticky and warm, and how he would slide inside her in long, slow strokes. Thumbs would brush over hardened nipples and she would moan as he mouthed the side of her jugular, tasting the salt-sweat tang of damp skin and feeling the hard, rhythmic contractions of her body beneath him, hands digging into his back and lips parted in a startled, 'o'.

In the dark, he fisted himself, thumb slicking the leaking tip of his cock as he stroked, quickly, furtively, while he imagined it. His breathing was harsh, jagged, and he shuddered violently when he came, white stripes of sterile fluid spurting out of him, something useless and functionless and to serve no other purpose than to approximate human ejaculate. His breathing slowed. The pleasure, though fleeting, did little to mask his shame.

For the first time, Jarvis knew loneliness. Quietly he cleaned himself, balling up the tissues and stuffing them into the garbage, before turning on the shower with shaking hands.

 

****

 

"It's going to be lonely without you," Pepper said.

Jarvis said nothing. Quietly he had given her his official resignation, and he had taken the little bit of inheritance possible to allow him to travel, to get his bearings elsewhere. It shamed him, abusing his master's trust like this, but there was no other way.

He packed his things. Pepper stood at the foot of his doorway, brow creased and watching as Jarvis wordlessly packed his bags, unable to say anything or look at her.

"I'm sorry," Jarvis said, and Pepper watched him silently, doubtless wondering why her friend seemed so sad, and wondering why he couldn't look at her, or tell her what was wrong.

 

******

 

He was traveling on foot through when Bruce had found him, alone in a bar, trying to collect his thoughts. Surprised, Jarvis said nothing when Bruce wordlessly sat next to him, ordering a drink and frowning under the light of the naked bulb.

"So," Bruce said, and he pulled out the letter. "I hear you're in love with Pepper."

And Jarvis took a moment to himself, before proceeding to tell Bruce the answer.


End file.
